Time to Get Out the Rat Poison

February 14, 2014

by Geoffrey Chia

The Pilgrim’s Progress Continues …

Billy Pilgrim, courtesy of the Tralfamadorians, fell through a crack in the fabric of time and started hopping about the temporal landscape. Similarly we too are jumping back and forth between articles written at different times by Geoffrey Chia. This one, “Time to Get Out the Rat Poison” was published by the Elise Jones, then valiant and courageous editor of the Australian Rationalist, in early 2007. It exposed the true nature of that incumbent lying rodent John Howard prior to the Australian Federal election in November 2007.

Circumstances today evoke a nauseating sense of deja vu, with recycled garbage such as Industry and Resources Monster Ian MacFarlane version 2.0 (identical to version 1.0, except in a more advanced stage of putrefaction), who recently pledged to “unlock every molecule” of coal seam gas from under the Australian ground. Global mass extinction, here we come. Let’s ride this bomb down to perdition, just like that crazyperson Slim Pickens.

So it goes …

Chia’s latest contribution for this space was published in January 2007. It’s never been more relevant than today. Pdf is here.

__________

McPherson’s latest radio interview, with UK Collapse Radio, is embedded below. It was conducted Wednesday, 12 February 2014.

Comments 77

If bad government policy kills
people, surely the people who
vote for those bad governments
are ultimately responsible. Voters
who install governments that
have already proven to be evil
must also be considered culpable
for the murder of innocents,
whether the dead be Iraqi civilians
or unsuspecting US soldiers who
thought they were serving their
country but were in fact serving
the interests of Halliburton & Co.

I disagree because it doesn’t matter which party wins. Halliburton will get its share no matter who is in power.

I agree with Pat. You have to be a little bit glib to think that voters have a say an anything happening in Government these days. Our Government (U.S.) is in place to protect the interest of the corporate oligarchs and that will not change. The military is just an extension of the oligarchy on a global scale, protecting their interests abroad – interests which of course are destroying the living planet, causing oppression abroad and obedience at home – as Guy so eloquently puts it. Voters aren’t instilling anything but two sides to the same coin.

The federal government has underestimated methane emissions from the United States by 50 percent for the past 20 years, according to a comprehensive new study.

Methane, also called natural gas, is a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas. It lasts just nine years in Earth’s atmosphere but is about 34 times more potent at trapping infrared radiation (the greenhouse effect) than carbon dioxide, which is more abundant and lasts longer. While methane spews into the sky from both natural sources, such as wetlands, and human activities, including oil and gas production, the government estimates only track manmade sources.

The review of scientific studies of methane emissions suggests that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) methane counts are about 50 percent too low, though the underestimate could range from 25 percent to as much as 75 percent. That means the United States is pumping about 14 million tons more methane than thought into the atmosphere each year, according to the findings, published today (Feb. 13) in the journal Science.

“Evidence from numerous studies consistently suggest that methane emissions are larger than those estimated by the EPA inventory,” said Adam Brandt, lead study author and an energy resources engineer at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

The review analyzed the results of more than 200 studies that traced methane emissions across the United States and were published in the past 20 years. The results were compared to the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which records methane emissions and other climate-changing gases.

This isn’t the first time a serious discrepancy has shown up between official methane estimates and a scientific study. For example, the EPA’s “bottom-up” approach, which measures natural gas outputs directly from the source, can come up with vastly different figures than “top-down” studies, which measure air-borne gas concentrations. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November 2013 using the top-down approach also found a 50 percent underestimate.

“There have been a lot of studies that … superficially, have seemingly contradictory results,” Brandt said. “Really, they were performed at different scales with different methodologies.”

The new study sought to synthesize the results of both approaches, and provide a better estimate of natural gas emissions across the United States. It was funded by Novim, a nonprofit group aimed at providing scientific data on major world problems, through a grant from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation.

Natural gas as fuel

One of the biggest U.S. methane emitters is the natural gas industry. Leaks come from drilling for oil and gas, refining plants and transport and distribution, such as pipelines.

The study finds that just a small number of super-emitters in the natural gas industry are likely responsible for more than half of the industry’s methane leaks. Finding these super-emitters, which account for less than 1 percent of all leaking devices, is a challenge for industry, Brandt said. “There’s about a half a million wells and a couple million miles of pipeline, so it’s a very big and very complex system,” he said. “But if they know where the leak is they want to fix it, because it’s costing them money.” Greenhouse Gases: The Biggest Emitters (Infographic)

Cleaning up leaks would finally make natural gas cleaner than diesel, the study finds. Currently, the leaks in the gas system mean that running trucks and buses on diesel is still cleaner than natural gas, the researchers said.

But even though the natural gas system is sloppier than the EPA estimates, it’s still cleaner than coal, the study concludes. Switching to coal-fired power plants over natural gas would produce more climate warming, even if the natural gas system was responsible for all of the U.S. methane leaks reported in the study, the researchers said.

In response to concerns about natural gas extraction leakage, the EPA is considering tightening federal regulations on oil and gas drilling to reduce methane emissions.

An agency spokesperson said the study results have not been reviewed yet. “EPA is aware of methane studies that result in estimates of national methane emissions that differ from EPA’s estimates, and is interested in feedback on how information from such studies can be used to improve U.S. GHG [greenhouse gas] Inventory estimates,” the agency said in a statement.
__________________

Notice the article goes directly from an enormous increase in methane being emitted by the U.S. – but absolutely NO other discussion of its affect on climate change – to Methane As MONEY (ie. fuel).

The last two paragraphs and especially the last sentence tells it all:
“yes we’re aware of the leaks and we’ll get around to fixing them sometime with “proposed regulations”, but meanwhile we’ll be trying to incorporate it into our business as usual plan. . . . ”

They just aren’t gettin’ it Guy, or they’re refusing to acknowledge it. Oh, but big surprise on the wacky weather systems, hunh? How about all those snow storms on the east coast, the fires in Australia, the warming Arctic and the terrible flooding in England (waiting for the mere suggestion that it could even possibly be related to climate change and the weather we’re having now and into the foreseeable future – and, it’s crickets . . . ghost town . . . nobody there). Well, what’s on the telly then . . .

I guess we’ll just keep up our dismal behavior until we suddenly can’t – with no idea what to do then. When the lights went out for two and a half days in last week’s ice storm I was thinking “what if this is it?” There’s no preparation, just reaction: stay warm and do what you can. That’s how it’s going to end – no warning, one day there’s simply no economy or a wrecked infrastructure, the power goes out, the phones go dead and there you are – deal with it . . .

Maybe it happens after a tornado or the result of a flood or uncontrollable wildfire, an avalanche or a volcano, a sinkhole or radiation, or a pandemic – all these possibilities are being distributed around the globe now so that no one is safe (what if the rain and snow are filtering out the Fukushima radiation and dropping it into the groundwater), there can be no preparation, because you don’t know what’s coming and you can’t do it by yourself. Banding together might help for a while, but when habitat degradation overwhelms the energy to keep things stable enough to live and deprives humanity of the ability to grow enough food – that’s when chaos usually takes over and things collapse much faster.

Met Office Chief: “the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change”

The UK is experiencing an exceptionally stormy winter, and Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo has stated “all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change.” Source. The Met Office have produced a detailed account of their findings with regards the exceptional winter of 2013/14, it’s available here.

The persistent nature of the storms that have been repeatedly hitting the UK is due to processes as far flung as Indonesia and the North Pacific, also involving the polar vortex, these have caused the jet stream configuration that has steered storms to the UK, and intensification of the Jet that has been part of the intensity and frequency of the storms. For the details, those interested should read page 13 onwards. However that is but part of the equation, we’re seeing ‘natural’ processes modified by anthropogenic global warming processes (similar to the droughts plaguing Australia). As Dr Slingo states:

“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”

As detailed in the Met Office report the intensification of rainfall has been observed.

Furthermore, where there are sufficiently long records of hourly rainfall data, it has been shown that rain rates potentially increase with temperature at rates that exceed the simple thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron relationship (6-7% increase in humidity for 10C rise in temperature) between temperature and humidity17 (Figure 23). This can be understood through the dynamic amplification of rain-bearing systems, where the induced circulation drives greater convergence of moisture into the system and hence heavier rainfall.
So the increase of heavy rainfall is proceeding at a rate that is greater than the most elementary physics might lead one to suppose.

The Thames is currently flooding and is due to continue rising for at least the next 24 hours, despite little rain being forecast. This means that by the time the next storm comes in (Tuesday) the Thames will still be rising. The Met Office report cites measurement of flow at Kingston Upon Thames, which has records from 1883 to present. Daily flows this winter have not exceeded the peak flows measured at times throughout that period. But the greatest number of consecutive days of flow over 275m^3/second was at 39 days up to 31/1/14, this is substantially higher than any other such period in the 131 year record.

I don’t quite buy that voting for the lesser of two evils is pointless. What strikes me as pointless is voting for it and then expecting that’s all we have to do, when it is naught but the bare start of a people-led improvement in governance. To even say it’s an improvement in governance is stretching it somewhat, when so much that is fundamental to the system remains unchanged regardless, but just look at what lives might have been saved if Gore had been US president instead of Bush. In that case, it would also be hard to imagine there not being better US response to climate change than we saw under Bush?

Dec. 12, 2000 — One of those inflection points that sped up our NTE horizon, from, say, 2045 to 2030. When Gore acquiesced in a crooked election result (read the Sup Ct dissent) that installed Pres. Cheney, and all the “nice”, passive Lib’rals followed in line, like cattle down the slaughterhouse ramp.

Jefferson was right, about people waiting a long time to revolt, if they do at all, and this time, the Methane has written an even more final script than the interactions of power plays between humans.

Copied pdf & pasted to txt:
January 2007
DR GEOFFREY CHIA
Dr Geoffrey Chia is a cardiologist practising in Brisbane, with interests in aviation, humanism and scientific philosophies.
ment could never be made in Aus- tralia, the very best place to live in the world, with the very best media and the very best politicians.
In April 2000, the South African
President, Thabo Mbeki, infa-
mously issued a public statement
casting doubt on the idea that AIDS was caused by the HIV virus. He asserted that AIDS was not even an infectious disease, and he sought out so-called experts at the fringes of science to back him up. It was all a ‘scaremongering campaign’ by the West designed to sell expensive medications, wouldn’t you know. So listen folks, just throw away those condoms and forget about safe sex, go ahead and share those needles, don’t worry about screening for blood trans- fusions, and let’s disregard any risk of materno-foetal transmission. A prominent federal politician — an elected leader of the country — had spoken in mea- sured, grave tones in the South African media, there- fore surely he must be right. We should all ignore those pesky scientists and their annoying facts. Evi- dence, shmevidence — who gives a damn.
One need not be a medical professional to shake one’s head in dismay at such an outrageously false and dangerous declaration — which represented a major setback to the serious fight against HIV / AIDs in South Africa. Who knows how many untold thou- sands or millions could become infected, suffer and die should such reckless stupidity by an ignorant politician be translated into public policy?
I believe that all medical practitioners, indeed all people possessing even the tiniest scrap of decency, have a responsibility to speak out against such harmful deceit wherever and whenever it occurs. Indifference is unacceptable.
Ladies and gentlemen, bad government policy kills people.
Those of us in the so-called more enlightened ‘First World’ might well look down our noses at Mbeki in a superior and condescending manner. Mbeki is clearly a buffoon, an oaf in a business suit — indeed, not much more evolved than a dressed-up chim- panzee who has barely gained the power of speech.
Surely such an irresponsible, anti-scientific state-
Unfortunately, the strategy of denial of crucially important truths by psychopath- ically devious federal politicians is not only alive and well in this country, it is thriving and proliferating in a manner akin to the HIV virus in South Africa, aided and abetted by the industry-controlled com-
mercial media.
The Australian media has failed miserably in its
democratic duty to challenge all the nonsense per- petrated by the Howard government.1 Only the Aus- tralian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has the courage to stand up and speak the truth. In the course of fulfilling its public responsibility, the ABC has been falsely accused by the government of ‘bias’. What a crazy world we live in!
We must all wake up and smell the turd blossoms!2
In Australia, we have many times previously heard the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane, cast doubt on the facts that global warming is real, is important and is caused by human activity. It is all a ‘scaremongering campaign’ by the greenies designed to sell renewable energy technol- ogy, wouldn’t you know. So listen folks, just keep burning those fossil fuels and forget about carbon emissions; don’t worry about hurricanes, floods, droughts, species’ extinction or melting glaciers; and let’s disregard drowning coastlines causing future refugee problems, or crop failures causing future famines. A prominent federal politician — an elected leader of the country — has spoken in measured, grave tones in the Australian media, therefore surely he must be right. We should all ignore those pesky scientists and their annoying facts. Evidence, shmevidence — who gives a damn.
The Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government, Professor Sir David King, visited Australia in late 2005 and addressed our parliament about the dire global consequences of climate change, which he said was clearly a greater threat to the world than terrorism.
PAGE 6 AUSTRALIAN RATIONALIST • Numbers 75/76
Ian Macfarlane walked out. When later asked by an ABC journalist why he did so, Macfarlane refused to comment.
In a previous essay, I described Macfarlane as either impenetrably stupid, a coal company stooge or an impenetrably stupid coal company stooge.3 Let me also add that minister Ian Macfarlane is clearly a buffoon, an oaf in a business suit — indeed, not much more evolved than a dressed-up chimpanzee who has barely gained the power of speech.
When John Howard, in 2006, was asked what he thought of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Howard replied that his government did not
visitors to this country. Too bad that the campaign offended the British enough for them to ban it. Talk about taxpayers’ money going down the toilet. When Andrew Denton asked comedian Billy Connolly on the interview program Enough Rope what he thought of John Howard’s exhortations to curb public vul- garity, Billy replied that John Howard himself was a public vulgarity. The applause was deafening. Accordingly, my question is this: if John Howard is a public vulgarity, and John Howard advocates getting rid of public vulgarities, then surely it stands to reason that John Howard should get rid of himself?
Unfortunately we know that this intransigent 1950s
formulate policy based on popular movies. He may as well have added that his government did not for- mulate policy based on proper facts or evidence. Clearly his support for the invasion of Iraq was tes- timony to that.
In early 2006, John Howard, that doyen of etiquette, made an appeal to all Australians to temper their lan- guage, to curb their public vulgarity. No matter that shortly after this the government spent millions launching their ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ tourism campaign, based on the brilliant concept that coarse language was somehow a good way to attract
throwback is not going to release his claw-like grasp on power willingly. It is therefore up to us to vote him out. We have the golden opportunity to do so in 2007, and we must not fail.
We all know what John Howard stands for. He stands for undermining student unions by cutting their funding. He stands for undermining workers’ rights with his workplace contracts, contrironically4 entitled ‘WorkChoices’. He stands for stifling dissent with his anti-sedition laws. He stands for whipping up a frenzy over the so-called ‘War on Terror’, which he bravely fights using fridge magnets. He stands for
AUSTRALIAN RATIONALIST • Numbers 75/76 PAGE 7
slandering desperate refugees about throwing their children overboard, in order to manipulate public prejudice.5 He stands for imprisoning innocent asylum seekers, including women and children, behind barbed wire. He stands for detaining Aus- tralian citizens without trial and without evidence in Guantanamo Bay at the whim of a foreign power. He takes credit for a plump economy which he had nothing whatsoever to do with.6 He slavishly sup-
stands for the cowardly invasion of a defenceless country on the basis of lies, resulting in the deaths of more than 650,000 Iraqis (as published by The Lancet medical journal in October 20068).
I believe that all medical practitioners, indeed all people possessing even the tiniest scrap of decency, have a responsibility to speak out against such harmful deceit wherever and whenever it occurs. Indifference is unacceptable.
Ladies and gentlemen, bad government policy kills people.
In a sane world, such a person would have long ago been pros- ecuted as a war criminal alongside Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bush and Blair. We are indeed shocked and awed by the neo- cons and their toadies. We are shocked at their spectacular incompetence and awed by their astounding stupidity. Most of all, though, we are appalled by their despicable corruption, hypocrisy and malevolence.
And so, Mr Rumsfeld, here is a ‘known known’ I offer to you: we now know for sure that the inva- sion of Iraq will go down in history as an act of damnable thuggery committed by a bunch of damnable thugs.
If bad government policy kills people, surely the people who vote for those bad governments are ultimately responsible. Voters who install governments that have already proven to be evil must also be considered culpable for the murder of innocents, whether the dead be Iraqi civilians or unsuspecting US soldiers who thought they were serving their country but were in fact serving the interests of Halliburton & Co.
Paul Keating perhaps put it most aptly when he described John Howard as ‘having all the vision of Mr Magoo with none of the good intentions’.
We have the golden opportunity to get rid of this lying rodent and his execrable cronies in 2007 and replace them with leaders who possess greater decency, vision and integrity. We must not fail.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
ports the interests of the coal and uranium industries, while undermining renewable energy develop- ment7, and he pays mere lip service to global warming. He stands for negligence and ineptitude in the face of the Australian Wheat Board kickbacks, the worst bribery scandal in Australian history. He
PAGE 8 AUSTRALIAN RATIONALIST • Numbers 75/76
Notes and references
1 One may argue that the Australian commercial media, dominated by Rupert Murdoch, is the prime originator of most of the nonsense anyway (such as weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or global warming denial), and that Howard is merely toeing Murdoch’s line. And just what is Murdoch’s agenda? Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, himself said that ‘Rupert’s idea of a better world is a world that is better for Rupert’.
2 ‘Turd blossom’ is of course the nickname George Bush Junior gave to Karl Rove, the architect of Bush’s 2004 election campaign. Rove has also been called ‘Bush’s brain’.
3 See Chia, Geoffrey ‘Achieving wisdom’ in Australian Rationalist, No. 74, Winter 2006 ().
4 For definition of a ‘contrironic’ term or title, see Chia, Geoffrey ‘Confronting the wizards of ID’ in Dissent, No. 22, Summer 2006 / 2007.
5 Evidence ultimately revealed the mastermind of the ‘children overboard’ lie to be the abominable Peter Reith. When Reith was exposed in due course, instead of being punished and condemned, he was spirited away overseas and removed from our scrutiny, and rewarded with the lucrative position of Executive Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London.
6 The federal government delights in taking credit for our good economic times, but the fact of the matter is they have nothing to do with Australia’s prosperity. The Hawke and Keating governments did the hard work of economic restructuring previously, which the current government merely inherited. Our present wealth is the result of a prolonged commodities boom driven by an insatiable demand for coal, metals and natural gas from rapidly developing China, a matter of dumb luck for resource-rich Australia. Crediting Howard for Australia’s wealth is like crediting the Saudi royal family for Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth, a totally undeserved attribution. Cheap manufactured goods from China have also directly, or by competitive pressure on rivals, driven the cost of consumer goods down, enabling us to keep more money in our pockets — giving us more disposable income. The GST windfall and sell-off of valuable public assets has enabled the present government to accumulate a huge surplus fund,
which it uses to bribe the voting public with ‘tax breaks’ or ‘family benefits’ each time an election comes around. The same good economic situation (apart from the loss of our public assets) would have existed if Labor had been in federal government for the past eleven years. It is an utter myth to claim that members of the coalition government are somehow economic geniuses; however, they have hoodwinked the public into believing this lie by relentless propaganda from the colluding commercial media. This fallacy must be exposed to the voting public. What about their intended sell- off of Telstra, and abandoned sell-off of the Snowy River hydro scheme? Same agenda.
7 Erstwhile federal minister for the enviornment and heritage Ian Campbell vetoed the Bald Hills wind farm project in Victoria with the spurious excuse that it would endanger the orange-bellied parrot. Information later released to the public in 2006 revealed that in the worst-case scenario, one parrot would be killed every 667 years — hardly a significant risk by anybody’s measure. Indeed, the Federal Court of Australia heard evidence that Campbell had ignored advice from his own department that the wind farm could be built without any risk to the parrot. The reduction of carbon emissions by the wind farm would also have mitigated the threat to many more endangered species overall. Campbell was appropriately condemned as ‘grossly incompetent’ and ‘a joke’ by Rob Hulls, Victorian Minister for Planning. Campbell’s tactics are typical of the federal government, which uses morally or environmentally righteous-sounding language to push through legislation which is in fact harmful to the public good and to the environment, but which benefits big-business interests such as the coal-fired power lobby. Campbell is either a fool or a corrupt pawn of industry, or both. Despite the coalition’s reshuffling of the deckchairs in January 2007, Campbell remained a front-bench minister, and nothing had really changed — until he was sacked over the Brian Burke affair in March. This sacking was a particularly cynical politically expedient manoeuvre, just as was Howard’s sudden ‘concern’ about David Hicks’ detention, which was obviously driven by the shifting winds of public opinion rather than by any genuine interest in the rule of law.
8 See Burnham, Lafta, Doocy and Roberts ‘Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey’, The Lancet, Vol. 368, Issue 9545, 21 Oct 2006, pp1421–1428.
AUSTRALIAN RATIONALIST • Numbers 75/76 PAGE 9

News Flash: If you post the link, you do NOT have to then cut and past the entire %#$@* article here! Believe it or not, most people here are smart enough to follow the link, and find their way back here to leave a comment or continue their reading. If you don’t believe me, try it for once, and we’ll be able to handle it just fine.

Amazing how some of the reports and commentary regarding the incredible UK mega-storms do not mention any connection to climate chaos AT ALL…

It’s as if this stuff ‘just happens’. No reason to ask if there might be any cause or reason or significance.

One report in the Guardian from a meteorologist ends reassuringly ‘I’m sure this has all happened before’ but supplies no evidence to support that statement, and it is an odd statement, when one reads elsewhere about occurrences that have not been known for 250 years, etc.

Have the seas reached you up there on Angel Mountain yet?! My god, I do believe the UK is being smote, thus the no mentioning of climate chaos connection- it’s a god thing! Seriously, I hope you are hanging in there. I find it all terrifying, but am amazed that we are still hooked up and online watching this all play out. It is surreal.

They are still clearing dead trees and debris from our October blizzard, and all I can say is there is going to be a lot less shade this summer. Well, I guess I could mention that many of the trees that they are clearing were not actually damaged in the storm- they were already dead. All of the deer and birds that used to hang out all winter, feeding on the rotten crabapples from the tree out front, well, they are simply gone. Actually, I’ve been fretting about it all ‘winter’, but just yesterday I saw six grouse and one bluejay, but that flock of grouse used to number around 25-30. The robins arrived during our previous warm spell, right before the last deep freeze, but not sure where they are now. Everything is out of balance and off-kilter and I worry about the animals. Even the darn ants that were infesting the house appear to have disappeared.

Other parts of the world have it much worse, of course, thousands die, but UK is not used to this, so it is a shock. The storms keep on coming. It must cause havoc for the farmers, they will not be able to work the land over the last couple of months, and looks as if there’ll be another month of this…

No, they don’t put it down to God here, that’s you guys over there, but I get the feeling that the Gvt sort says Sshhhh! don’t mention that nasty climate change stuff, I mean, the Environment Minister doesn’t believe in AGW, the True Faith is MONEY, we’ve got to frack our way through the crisis to get the economy back on track, everybody knows that…

I’m 800ft up, I’m not bothered by the water, but the wind gets scary, my trees planted 25 years ago get laid flat, which is sad to see, the gusts must be 90mph, hit the house with a WHAM ! I hear stories of local people losing their roofs…

One or two of these over the winter would be ‘normal’. To have ’em every week, since December last year, and getting stronger, stops being ‘normal’ even for clueless people.

Met Office Chief: “the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change”

The UK is experiencing an exceptionally stormy winter, and Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo has stated “all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change.” Source. The Met Office have produced a detailed account of their findings with regards the exceptional winter of 2013/14, it’s available here.

The persistent nature of the storms that have been repeatedly hitting the UK is due to processes as far flung as Indonesia and the North Pacific, also involving the polar vortex, these have caused the jet stream configuration that has steered storms to the UK, and intensification of the Jet that has been part of the intensity and frequency of the storms. For the details, those interested should read page 13 onwards. However that is but part of the equation, we’re seeing ‘natural’ processes modified by anthropogenic global warming processes (similar to the droughts plaguing Australia). As Dr Slingo states:

“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”

As detailed in the Met Office report the intensification of rainfall has been observed.

Furthermore, where there are sufficiently long records of hourly rainfall data, it has been shown that rain rates potentially increase with temperature at rates that exceed the simple thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron relationship (6-7% increase in humidity for 10C rise in temperature) between temperature and humidity17 (Figure 23). This can be understood through the dynamic amplification of rain-bearing systems, where the induced circulation drives greater convergence of moisture into the system and hence heavier rainfall.
So the increase of heavy rainfall is proceeding at a rate that is greater than the most elementary physics might lead one to suppose.

The Thames is currently flooding and is due to continue rising for at least the next 24 hours, despite little rain being forecast. This means that by the time the next storm comes in (Tuesday) the Thames will still be rising. The Met Office report cites measurement of flow at Kingston Upon Thames, which has records from 1883 to present. Daily flows this winter have not exceeded the peak flows measured at times throughout that period. But the greatest number of consecutive days of flow over 275m^3/second was at 39 days up to 31/1/14, this is substantially higher than any other such period in the 131 year record.

The Stateside storm, the latest of many this bitter winter, brought with it heavy snow, sleet and icy conditions that saw thousands of flights cancelled and left 21 people dead, mostly from car crashes

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Friday’s storm caused heavy rain and winds up to 80 mph in Britain’s southern counties, aggravating areas already flooded following the wettest January since records began in 1776

Daily Mail,
14 February, 2013

Devastating storms that have dumped as much as 40 inches of snow on parts of the United States and caused widespread flooding in the UK are combining over the Atlantic, weather experts have revealed.

The storms in the US have left 21 people dead and caused thousands of flights to be cancelled, bringing the east coast to a standstill.

Meanwhile, in Britain, heavy rain and winds up to 80 mph devastated parts of the south, aggravating areas already flooded after the wettest January since records began in 1776.

Floods have drenched the low-lying Somerset Levels in the south west and the Thames Valley west of London, where hundreds of properties have been swamped after the River Thames burst its banks.

The situation is also set to get worse as torrential downpours forecast for this weekend could see rivers reaching dangerously high levels.

On Wednesday, the UK Met Office, the country’s weather service, issued a report that linked this winter’s extreme weather to global warming.

The Atlantic storm system brought another bout of gale-force winds to Britain on Friday, with large waves battering coast lines and up to 1.6 inches of rain causing flood levels to rise.

As winds gusted at up to 80 mph, landslips and fallen trees caused havoc on the rail network, and some arriving flights were diverted from London’s Heathrow to other airports amid fierce bouts of wind.

Motorists were also advised not to travel on the roads this weekend as families tried to escape the south during the half-term school break.

Peter Willison of the Environment Agency said Friday’s rainfall would send waters on the Thames and other rivers even higher, flooding hundreds more properties.

He said it would be ‘many days,’ and possibly weeks, before flooded rivers receded.

UK authorities have asked Sweden and the Netherlands for additional flood defenses as teams work to remove blockages from rivers and deploying sandbags.

On Friday, Prince William and Prince Harry helped flood-hit Brions protect their homes, unloading sandbags alongside soldiers in the village of Datchet in Berkshire.

Meanwhile, the US is bracing for more snow in the Northeast between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, ruining the plans of people looking to take advantage of the President’s Day weekend.

The relentless snow and ice storms battering the US this winter have led to the highest number of flight cancellations in more than 25 years, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

U.S. airlines have canceled more than 75,000 domestic flights since December 1, including more than 14,000 this week. [good pix too]
__________________

Yesterday here in PA there was a pile-up of about 100 vehicles that shut down the PA Turnpike for the entire day due to the latest snowstorm.

What’s the proper dosage of Rat Poison for Homo sapiens per lb. of of body weight?

Coumarin is a compound produced in sweet clover that is converted by mould under moist conditions into dicoumarol, an antagonist of Vitamin K. Vitamin K is needed in the synthesis by the liver of several proteins involved in blood clotting. In the 1920s the cattle that are mouldy wet sweet clover bled and even died. Dicoumarol was isolated and used as rat poison. Rats tend to sample new foods in small quantities at first to see if the food sickens them; if it does not, they may eat more of it. Dicoumarol and related compounds have a latent phase of two to three days, as the clotting factor proteins in the blood turnover (are replaced) in that time. The rats do not notice any symptoms in that time, and then start eating the poisoned food.

A derivative, warfarin (brand name Coumadin®) is the standard agent used in humans to slow blood clotting. Warfarin has a half-life of two to three days in the body (half the amount is eliminated in two to three days).

Today’s rat poisons are a derivative compound, brodifacoum which has a half-life of three months and has greater potency by more than two orders of magnitude. It has an LD50 of around 0.2 mg/kg and an average lethal dose without treatment in a 60 kg. adult is about 15 mg. which would be 0.25 mg/kg or 0.125 mg/lb.

“Democrats in congress save the republican party. Thanks….I think
Our Man on the Floor of the House Rep Steve Kirby gives us a legislative update from Olympia.
Dr Guy McPherson joins us to discuss the cause and effects of global climate change. We ARE doing it, it’s bad and it’s going to be hard if not impossible to fix. YEEESH!!!”

Another of Chia’s trips backwards in time; I have to say that much of what he was expressing at the time mirrors my own journey.

Flash forward to today and that interview on UK Collapse. I listened to the first hour and found it engaging and informative. In ways listening to their description of life in Englad seemed to mirror what’s going on here in the USA. I liked the repertoire between all 3 hosts. From the level of discussion they were having I had high expectations to the hour with Guy.

In the lead in to Guy, Alison’s reading of the document written by Nigel Arnold, Director of the Walker Institute was stunning.. Despite all the rain and wind occurring in England Arnold was clearly not ready to state outright that the current weather was directly caused by Climate Change. Actually Arnold asked in his piece that it wasn’t known “To what extent is this due to Climate Change? The jury is still out on that?”

I got to thinking about that statement a great deal. What PROOF would ever satisfy someone like Arnold? Having Perry Mason put Climate Change on the stand and in those final few minutes or pages question Climate Change in such a way that s/he breaks

Allison seemed excited about Guy being on the show. Yet by the end of the interview I was disappointed. Wondered what was wrong with me. I asked myself, “What’s wrong with you?” “Are you never satisfied?” “What did you want from those hosts?” “Can’t you see anything positive (at least they didn’t see all the wonderful things Bill McKibben has been doing) in this segment?

Well sadly, no I was not satisfied and I tried to figure out what was disturbing to me. Feeling isolated and very sullen I was grateful to read on the blog that others came away from this interview not completely satisfied.

I was not disappointed that NTE wasn’t even mentioned. It doesn’t have to be everytime. Anyone (well not anyone really as I’ve learned) discussing the the data sees the direction we’re he

I realize that these interviews are directed by the questions of the hosts, and unless they give an opening to the guest to pursue (or the guests hijacks) a topic outside the questions then it won’t happen. The segment with Guy seemed flat and rather boring.

I had wondered if any of the hosts had read the Climate Summary piece. That piece alone contains enough points to engage in a rather lively, indepth and passionate discussion. Taking about how habitat will not be able to adjust to the rapid changes, the constant revising of the year when we’ll reach a certain rise in temperature, the feedback loops, and the constant change of the information in the summary

I found listening to Lee the most challenging aspect of the interview. Despite Guy’s attempts to insert points that could be followed up on Lee was all over the place with no coherent foundational understanding of the world around him. It was as if he was choosing one from column A and one from column B regardless that the items were not suited to each other and could not be used together.

Does he really believe what he says? That we’ll only have this Climate Change or decades and decades. We want to do something now so that 40 years down the road our kids won’t have to deal with this.

He babbled on about Mother Nature giving her anthropomorphic aspects. That she’s letting us know we’ve misbehaved and this can’t go on. Yet, he says the she’s very forgiving and if we show her we’re willing to make the effort she’ll help us out. In the mean time while we’re (the particular humans doing most of the damage) making up our minds 200 species go extinct every day and those humans less responsible take the hit for our indecision.

He focused on the monetary system being the cause of all these problems. That if we just fix the monetary system that’s all we need to do.

Then his fantastic statement of shutting down the factories and living in the dark, but only for a short time as we’ll come up with something (solar and wind) that will allow us to get the lights back on again. And don’t forget his blurting out the word desalinization after Guy mentioned the drought in California. I’m guessing lee thinks this is the way to resolve the drought.

An the piece de resistence about vertical farms. He was like a crowing rooster that one was being built (he didn’t have the article about it). It’s the solution to our food problem.

Did you know that food farms can feed the world (I assume he meant all 7.2 Billion and rising of us) and use less labor than we currently do? Lee hasn’t thought the equation through. What the heck does he expect to happen when we feed all 7.2 Billion? Yeah we get 14 Billion (guess no worries as those vertical farms will just keep getting built higher and higher (like the tower of Babel) We’ll build them all the way to the moon. Unfortunately, if we shut down all the factories how are we going to make the steel beams (or are we going to build them out of wood).

At the end of Guy’s interview Lee actually made a comment that “well that was depressing.” I felt more depressed listening to the topics the hosts were discussing in the preceding and subsequent hour to Guy’s was more distressing and depressing. It may have been for them, and they didn’t even touch on NTE.

So, in the end I’m aware the hearts of these hosts (mostly Lee) were in the right place, but critical thinkers. Not to me.

PAUL BECKWORTH AND DESPERATION

Great recent video by Beckworth posted on the last thread explaining the current weather trends. Only towards the end does it seem Beckworth has fallen down the rabbit hole. Talking about how we can still get to a sustainable world. That WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY, shades of Steve Austin (as Beckworth said). Paul’s got some great insight, but when he says things like that I have to wonder.

AL GORE REVIEW OF THE SIXTH EXTINCTIO BY KOLBERT

Did any of you read the review of The Sixth Extinction written By Al Gore?

It wasn’t bad. Straddles the line. Implies there is still time for us to mend our ways. No mention of the 40 year lag of course. And no mention of what do humans do if we succeed in bringing every thing els.e to point of extinction or to extinction. Hey, no problem humans don’t need to stand on the shoulders of anything to exist.

Of course Mr. Gore’s concluding paragraph could give one whiplash:

“Fortunately, history is full of examples of our capacity to overcome even the most difficult challenges whenever a controversy is finally resolved into a choice between what is clearly right and what is clearly wrong. The anomalies Kolbert identifies are too glaring to ignore. She makes an irrefutable case that what we are doing to cause a sixth mass extinction is clearly wrong. And she makes it clear that doing what is right means accelerating our transition to a more sustainable world.

Help me out here people. What part of history is full of examples or our capacity to ever get out of a situation like we have today? When in all of recorded history has human ingenuity not created more problems down the road due to their ability to meet the challenge.? What is that sustainable world Gore refers to?

“This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.”

Birthplace of the Industrial “Revolution”, indeed.

Carry on… stiff upper, and all that. (Amazing! As they yell to the BBC boat from their flooded homes. “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way; The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say.”)

Excuse me. I posted too quickly above. I should have given the comment another once over before posting it. My apologies. If Guy or the Admin want to delete the previous post fee free.

Another of Chia’s trips backwards in time; I have to say that much of what he was expressing at the time mirrors my own journey. In one of Chia’s pieces he stated that people will accept the form of science that keeps them medically alive, but dismiss any science that isn’t to their benefit. I kept that thought in my mind ever since.

Flash forward to today and that interview on UK Collapse. I listened to the first hour and found it engaging and informative. In ways listening to their description of life in Englad seemed to mirror what’s going on here in the USA. I liked the repertoire between all 3 hosts. From the level of discussion they were having I had high expectations to the hour with Guy.

In the lead in to Guy, Alison’s reading of the document written by Nigel Arnold, Director of the Walker Institute was stunning.. Despite all the rain and wind occurring in England Arnold was clearly not ready to state outright that the current weather was directly caused by Climate Change. Actually Arnold asked in his piece that it wasn’t known “To what extent is this due to Climate Change? The jury is still out on that?”

I got to thinking about that statement a great deal. What PROOF would ever satisfy someone like Arnold? Having Perry Mason put Climate Change on the stand and in those final few minutes or pages question Climate Change in such a way that s/he breaks down hysterically sobbing scream, “It was me. I did it. I did it and I’d do all over again.”

Allison seemed excited about Guy being on the show. Yet by the end of the interview I was disappointed. Wondered what was wrong with me. I asked myself, “What’s wrong with you?” “Are you never satisfied?” “What did you want from those hosts?” “Can’t you see anything positive (at least they didn’t see all the wonderful things Bill McKibben has been doing) in this segment?

Well sadly, I was not satisfied. I tried to figure out what disturbed me. Feeling isolated and very sullen I was grateful to read on the blog that others came away from this interview not completely satisfied.

I was not disappointed that NTE wasn’t even mentioned. It doesn’t have to be every time Guy does and interview. Anyone (well not anyone really as I’ve learned) discussing the data sees the direction we’re headed in.

I realize that these interviews are directed by the questions asked by the hosts; therefore unless they allow an opening for the guest (or the guest hijacks the discussion) a topic outside the questions asked usually won’t happen. The segment with Guy seemed flat and rather boring, not because of Guy but the hosts seemed to not know what to do (the whole interchange only lasted about 45 minutes).

I wondered if any of the hosts had read the Climate Summary piece. That piece is loaded with enough points that hosts could easily conduct and interview that is lively, in depth and passionate. I would think that talking about how habitat will not be able to adjust to the rapid changes or the constant revising of the year when we’ll reach a certain rise in temperature or the current number of feedback loops, or the constant change of the information in the summary would provide enough fodder for anyone conducting these interviews.

Listening to Lee was the most challenging aspect of the interview. Despite Guy’s attempts to insert points that could be followed up on, Lee was all over the place with no coherent foundational understanding of the world around him. It was as if he was choosing one from column A and one from column B regardless that the items were not suited to each other and could not be used together.

Does Lee really believe what he says? That Climate Change will only be something we’ll have to face for decades and decades. That if we want to make sure our kids don’t face the same thing 40 years down the road we’d better deal with this situation now.

Lee babbled on about Mother Nature ascribing to it/he/her human attributes. She’s letting us know we’ve misbehaved and that our behavior can’t go on. Lee said Mother Nature is very forgiving; if we show her we’re willing to make the effort to change she’ll help us out. In the mean time while we’re (the particular humans doing most of the damage) making up our minds 200 species go extinct every day and those humans less responsible take the hit for our indecision.

Lee felt pretty strong that the current monetary system was the main culprit for the current dilemma’s we’re facing. That if we just fix the monetary system that’s all we need to do.

Then Lee made a pretty fantastic statement about shutting down the factories and living in the dark, but only for a short time as we’ll come up with something (solar and wind) that will allow us to get the lights back on again. And don’t forget his blurting out the word desalinization after Guy mentioned the drought in California. I’m guessing Lee thinks this is the way to resolve the drought.

And the piece de résistance was when Lee talked briefly about vertical farms. He was like a crowing rooster that one was being built (he didn’t have the article about it) and this kind of structure would be the solution to our food problems.

According to Lee food farms can feed the world (I assumed he meant all 7.2 Billion and rising of us) and we’ll use less labor than we currently do? I don’t believe Lee has thought the situation through adequately enough.

What the heck does he expect to happen when we feed all 7.2 Billion? Yeah we get 14 Billion (guess no worries as those vertical farms will just keep getting built higher and higher (like the tower of Babel) We’ll build them all the way to the moon. Unfortunately, if we shut down all the factories how are we going to make the steel beams (or are we going to build them out of wood).

At the end of the interview Lee actually made a comment that “well that was depressing.”. I wondered why were he felt that way after speaking with Guy when the topics they addressed prior and subsequent to Guy’s segment were just as depressing. How would they have handled discussing NTE.

So, in the end I’m aware the hearts of these hosts were in the right place, but I’m not sure they clearly understood the ramifications of Climate Change.

PAUL BECKWORTH AND DESPERATION

Great recent video by Beckworth posted on the last thread explaining the current weather trends. Only towards the end does it seem Beckworth has fallen down the rabbit hole. Talking about how we can still get to a sustainable world. That WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY, shades of Steve Austin (as Beckworth said). Paul’s got some great insight, but when he says things like that I have to wonder.

AL GORE REVIEW OF THE SIXTH EXTINCTIO BY KOLBERT

Did any of you read the review of The Sixth Extinction written By Al Gore?

It wasn’t a bad piece. Gore still straddles the line. Implies there is still time for us to mend our ways. Sadly there is no mention of the 40 year lag of course, but that would be stunning for people to learn. And no mention of what do humans do if we succeed in bringing everything other species to the point of extinction or to extinction. Hey, no problem, humans don’t need to stand on the shoulders of anything to exist.

Of course Mr. Gore’s concluding paragraph could give one whiplash:

“Fortunately, history is full of examples of our capacity to overcome even the most difficult challenges whenever a controversy is finally resolved into a choice between what is clearly right and what is clearly wrong. The anomalies Kolbert identifies are too glaring to ignore. She makes an irrefutable case that what we are doing to cause a sixth mass extinction is clearly wrong. And she makes it clear that doing what is right means accelerating our transition to a more sustainable world.

Help me out here people. What part of history is full of examples or our capacity to ever get out of a situation like we have today? When in all of recorded history has human ingenuity not created more problems down the road due to their ability to meet the challenge.? What is that sustainable world Gore refers to?

Well Tom it seems the Fukushima shuffle is but only begun.
Arnie Gundersen tells it like he sees it and this is the most hopeless looking Arnie I have ever seen. He knows the world is now toast.
I think he has been holding out for some greater good news on the so far hidden debris trail of all the Fukushima plants, but now he really sees it is not going to have a safe solution.
When an engineer gets a sick feeling in the belly it isn’t a good sign.
When that engineer is a nuclear engineer it is a very bad sign.
When that nuclear engineer is Arnie Gundersen, well, um……

WERE DONE FOR 250,000 YEARS !!!!!

I am getting a fire started and heating up a pot of warm beverage,
Anyone care to join me?

I’ll keep the pot on the stove like they use to do in Hogan’s Heros. Always ready for the next take.

Benjamin(td) – nice to see you back and weaving your magic for us; I see you inspired Henry there to produce a nice piece (and some funny stuff above that). Great work guys!

Ozman: yeah, nobody wants to hear it (especially the Japanese government who now consider simple information to be “top secret” and the disclosure thereof a jailable offence), but it’s getting worse by the day. Glad to see you’re still out there. I wish you were here or I was there with a bottle or two of my home-made wine.

ulvfugl: the Muir quote is priceless and gets to the root of it all – it’s all connected! Thanks for the videos too – always interesting.

I posted an article I saw on Yahoo news yesterday over at xraymike’s blog which I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention because, well, basically: we’re saved! (or maybe not)

Yep, you read it right – John Kerry was in China and is now in Indonesia asking for cooperation on climate change. Silly, isn’t it?
I mean, what are they going to do that’s any different? It’s a nice gesture, oh just four or five DECADES late, and of course it will have to incorporate business as usual (after all we gotta make money off of it), but it sounds good . . .

Another day, another river ruined by a big coal-industry spill – ‘When this much coal slurry goes into the stream, it wipes the stream out’

(Grist) – The coal power industry has dumped a lot of toxic crap into yet another river. This latest incident is not to be confused with the spill of toxic coal-cleaning chemicals that poisoned a West Virginia river last month and left 300,000 people without drinking water. Nor is it to be confused with a huge coal-ash spill from a retired power plant in North Carolina earlier this month.

No, this is a whole new spill.

Patriot Coal accidentally let more than 100,000 gallons of coal slurry loose from a coal processing facility in West Virginia. Six miles of Fields Creek, which flows into the Kanawha River, was blackened by the slurry spill. The slurry contained fine particles of processed coal, which includes heavy metals, and coal-cleaning chemicals.

“When this much coal slurry goes into the stream, it wipes the stream out,” said Randy Huffman, head of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). “This has had significant, adverse environmental impact to Fields Creek and an unknown amount of impact to the Kanawha River.” But officials say drinking water has not been affected, at least not yet.

The nonprofit Appalachian Voices has conducted tests of the affected area: “The water in the creek was extremely turbid and was a dark grey, almost black color. Significant sediment had already built up on the banks,” the group reports. [there’s more if you can stand it]

Because the phytoplankton are responsible for such a large percentage of the CO2 and O2 cycling, maybe if they are very sensitive to caesium and strontium and get killed off, that might have an effect ? I don’t know.

@Benjamin — thanks; you hang out with the right people, you get influenced. Hey, maybe it’s not Paris in the ’20s, but it’ll do for now.

Not really hitting it with this one, but I thought I’d send it out anyway, leave it in the shop to be worked on?

Up a Notch

Humanity’s been up to its antics
Causing storms all across the Atlantic.
They’ll be drilling for crude
Till they run out of food.
Then we’ll see them become truly frantic.

See what I mean? I wanted to incorporate something about the inflection points of climate realization, and, after the “Big Storms” era (1-3 years?) will begin to appear the first “seeds” of mass agricultural failure (for which some countries — not our own — are beginning to attempt to prepare.)

Anyway, my next attempt, inspired by today’s posts — something using “Phytoplankton”. That might be somewhat original. Any ideas?

“As climate scientists, we share the prevailing view in our community that human-induced global warming is happening and that, without mitigating measures, the Earth will continue to warm over the next century with serious consequences. But we consider it unlikely that those consequences will include more frigid winters.”

I’m not sure what the scientists are saying.

1) They believe human induced global warming is happening
2) They believe we can still implement mitigating measures, yet
a) no mention is made of 40 year lag effect
b) implication that we can still have the growth economy
3) Frigid winters are an unlikely consequence

Another point made in the piece was this:

“The research linking summertime Arctic sea ice with wintertime climate over temperate latitudes deserves a fair hearing. But to make it the centerpiece of the public discourse on global warming is inappropriate and a distraction. Even in a warming climate, we could experience an extraordinary run of cold winters, but harsher winters in future decades are not among the most likely nor the most serious consequences of global warming.”

They state that even in a warming climate there could be shifts in weather from cold to hot, but that harsh winters in the future are unlikely.

I guess they are differentiating between “cold winters” and “harsh winters”. How does one define the difference between the two terms? Aren’t they subjective? Wading through this piece takes a great deal of effort.

OTHER NEWS

So, just like Cameron in England saying money is no object Obama is out in California offering aid. Yet, what good does money do in the end? It’s not as if we can bribe nature to rain if we just pay it enough. I’m wondering if Obama doing a rain dance ceremony would be just as valid an action to take as throwing money at the problem.

Thanks for the link.
I agree, the economic collapse has already begun. Probably since before 2008. But just today enough dots can be connected, to depict the real picture of what is happening, beginning at the base. The small and mid size business is slowly disappearing.

PMB, I didn’t read the link, but the NYT has not been worth perusing in years.

Expect to hear more and more contradictory pieces from everywhere. Don’t bother trying to reconcile them (although I know it’s seemingly impossible not to try). It’s in the nature of our modular brain and ideological structures.

A question is what would happen if the majority of earth’s domesticated primates completely 100% accepted that extinction (or something close) was inevitable within 20-50 years. Based on my readings of experiments with rats and other sources, I would predict the following-

20% will live minimally , not in terms of consumption, but just go into emotional shutdown mode or bare robotic enactment of their daily tasks (though that already sounds familiar)

25% will just fall down pleading to their Jesus, God, Gods, Ascended Masters ,Buddha(s), Power Animals found in a fake shamanism weekend retreats, etc

5-15% will immediately attempt to enact a JG Ballard novel , watch out for them (can be some overlap with the previous segment) – number could climb much higher as conditions deteriorate

5% will go into a quixotic frenzy trying to construct a pseudo-primitivist survival plan or impregnable fortress (this can range from the destitute attempting cement igloos to the superrich who are actually building a “climate fortress” city right now in Africa-

RE, thanks for the video. MUCH more intelligent than the conversations I usually hear! AND it made me thirsty! I was too cold to have a beer wit youz guys but I found a left over bottle of glugwein from xmas with 3″ left in it, so I nuked a cup o’ that. I’m warmer now, thanks!

Godofredo Aravena
You wrote:
” …. the economic collapse has already begun …. But just today enough dots can be connected, to depict the real picture of what is happening …. The small and mid size business is slowly disappearing.”

I can confirm this in my location.
Anyone else want to chime in if you see the small to medium business going to the wall in your village/town?
Not happy to see it, but we all have been saying it will bite at some stage, no?

When one reaches the state where there is a sense that everything that was to be done has been done (kṛita-kṛityaḥ), there is also an absence of doer-ship, an absence of experiencer-ship and a sense of being an uninvolved witness to all continuing events and phenomena, including those of the mind-body complex. It has been described as wu-wei, or in Sanskrit as “prabaha patitam karyam” (“falling into the flow of events”.

‘Twas the evolution of consciousness!

Consciousness is immutable and is existence itself. It neither evolves nor devolves. Sadly, these matters are often overlooked both by the clergy and in Sunday school.

The same weather pattern that helped to cause drought in California and South America this year may migrate east into the central U.S. during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer, a climate forecaster said.

A strong upper-atmosphere ridge anchored over Alaska and in the southeast South Pacific near Indonesia suggest that drought conditions from Texas to Iowa may intensify from June to August after a brief period of above-normal rain from May to early June, according to Scott Yuknis, the lead forecaster with Middleboro, Massachusetts-based Climate Impact Co.

There will be “beneficial late spring, early summer rains in the northern Great Plains,” Yuknis said in an e-mail. “Otherwise, central U.S. drought strengthens this summer. Spring rains will be too spotty to ease central U.S. drought.”

A clash between cold air in the northern U.S. and warm weather in the south may bring extreme weather, Yuknis said. Freezing temperatures in May will threaten wheat crops in the Great Plains, Yuknis said. June rain may help to boost soil moisture from North Dakota to Illinois, while hot weather in July and August will increase crop stress.

About 22 percent of the Great Plains was rated in moderate-to-extreme drought on Feb. 11, while 17 percent of the Midwest was rated in drought, data from the U.S. Drought Monitor show.

Cooler-than-normal water temperatures in the northern Pacific Ocean and warm waters across the northern Atlantic Ocean increase the risks for hot, dry weather from Texas to the Ohio River Valley this year, Yuknis said. The center of the excessive heat this year will be Oklahoma and spread over parts of Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas.

CARLSBAD — Technicians at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant were taking surface samples Saturday afternoon after a radiation leak was reported at the nuclear waste repository.

The airborne radiation was detected around 11:30 p.m. on Friday, according to officials with the Department of Energy. All 139 workers at the site, located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, have been accounted for and are being sequestered on site. No injuries have been reported and no personnel were underground when the facility’s continuous air monitors, or CAMs, detected radiation downstream of where nuclear waste is disposed.

WIPP is the nation’s first transuranic nuclear waste repository, used to permanently dispose of low-level nuclear waste from government sites around the nation.

“These are radionuclides that are of a hazard if inhaled but it is not the kind of radiation that penetrates, and so the primary concern for the release of this nature is (through) the ventilation passageway and that’s why our employees are sequestered in place,” said Roger Nelson, a Department of Energy spokesman.

WIPP stores waste that primarily radiates alpha and beta-type radiation, according to Nelson.

“I can’t tell you the amount or level but they were elevated and above normal, above background (levels),” Nelson said of the radiation that was detected airborne near Panel 7, Room 7, in the south salt mine.

According to Nelson this is the first time in WIPP’s 15-year history that the facility has had a CAM alarm detect this level of radiation underground.

Public inquiries can be made the joint Information Center at (575) 234-7380.

WIPP entered emergency status less than two weeks ago, when an underground fire was reported. A vehicle used to transport salt in the north area of the underground caught fire. Several employees were taken to the hospital with smoke inhalation. WIPP’s underground operations have been suspended since the incident and there has been no indication whether the leak is a result of the previous emergency.

It is upsetting to me to see that we can’t keep to that agreement. It’s not right to bring the rule to the attention of some and then others break it.

I’m saddened that people have a difficult time keeping to the agreement. I see the breaking of this agreement as the exact type of small steps that have led us to mess we’re in. (Guess this is an indication that humans are doing what humans are geared to do and we can’t change)

It’s easy to point fingers when the damage is on huge scale by huge corporations only corporations are made up of people and the large scale damage started with smaller types of damage.

If we here who are discussing the reasons for why we are in this mess in the first place can’t abide by this simple rule well.. I guess that says it all.

Now with the forum in place (so if people really want to post more often) keeping to the two post agreement on the main thread is easier than ever and yet the agreement is still broken.

I don’t mean to ramble on here. It’s that a recent piece by Joe Bageant that Xraymike posted addressed the issue of how we relate to each other that raised to my mind the reason why communities fail. Are we able to think of what is the best decision for the good of the group? There are points Bageant makes that I disagree with (I’m not sure he understands how Climate Chaos is working or NTE), but on the whole what he addresses is why i feel that keeping to the two post per day agreement has been to the benefit of the site and those of us here.

There is no proof that consciousness is immutable. Likewise, there is no proof that it does not or cannot evolve.

Top Hits dictionary’s definition:
“noun
the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings: she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later.
• the awareness or perception of something by a person: her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence.
• the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world: consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain.”

Several other dictionaries have similar definitions. Not one says anything about being immutable, nor do any of them speak of it being equivalent to existence.

Right, here at the Salon — (I thought it was the Sylvia Beach of Doom?) — we do the best we can; you’re not Hemingway, and I’m not Fitzgerald, but wasn’t it our own Jimmy Joyce whose Stephen spoke “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake”? Why, that could have been right out of our own McPherson’s lips, eh?

Not sure if Boom Boom is the practice at your local Beach (sawasdee?), but it did remind me of one practical motto of use for many web forums, “Joke ’em if they can’t take a f***”.

Anyway, this morning brought a little light through the fog, and I thought I’d raise a little Melville, and relate some of my own family’s eco-history. (Too bad it was mostly of the “moving on” type prevalent in human habit, but survival was the order of those lifetimes.)

Another bumpy ride, but a nod to the classics:

I Guess They Had it Coming (Ode To Moby)

My great-great-grandpappy from Nantucket
Goes out for a sail but his luck, it
Unfortunately fails
For they’d killed all the whales
And the Pacific’s where he kicked the bucket.

Well, his wife got the news three years later,
And the Captain’s wife met the same fate; her
Hubby looked at my Grandma,
Said “Let’s get a farm (a
[f*** of a long way from Nantucket)]
And so they became New York upstaters.

OK, back to you (or Kirk) — something with “Moby”? Touching on the Ahab-like obsessiveness of IndCiv with killing all of Nature? I think Melville had it pegged (as did Thoreau) way, way way back when. “Its wood could only be American!” Wonder if Tocqueville saw it coming, too — he sussed out just about everything a century ahead.

Oh, I was going to ask one more thing today — what is it called when there is a cultural blossoming right before the lights go out in a civilization? I can’t remember the word, or the examples, right now. Help me remember. We can only hope to enjoy something like that, small recompense, as we face the mega-lights-out experience. (And one for which Guy’s sensitive antennae, among others, seem to be pointing the way. Not just a “Lost Generation”, but a Lost Species.)

Joe Bageant doesn’t have any thoughts about climate chaos or NTE. He died in 2011.

@Martin.

Wow. That really stunned me. I clicked on the link provided by X-RayMike and read the piece, but didn’t really search around his site. Bageant was not one of those I followed over the last decade.

Then after you told me he died I went back to the site and saw it in the header. 1946-2011

@Artleads,

Yes, that was my own thought process as I read the piece and just assumed it was written recently. It sure read as being on the mark. It seemed just a smidgen short of discussing NTE. I was accepting the piece as current and was fine with accepting Joe’s views without pushing the NTE argument.

Joe was ahead of the curve, as so few of us are, and now he’s gone. felt like I lost something. I did wonder what Joe would have thought of the Guy’s Climate Summary.

I did a search on Joe and Climate Change and see a couple of essays where he wrote about the topic. I checked out the list of essays on his site and as the site itself didn’t have a search engine I didn’t look at the archives of the site.

In any case from what i read he seemed to get what was going on. All the events of the last year wouldn’t have been a surprise to him. All the talk about extinction, well I wonder about that.

There is no point in trying to communicate with Robin Datta. He sees himself as a guru who issues edicts and like the Pope’s pronouncements, they are infallible and not to be questioned.

He sits upon a plinth raised above the heads of ordinary folk and speaks an a language that only he and the privileged minority can comprehend.

Unlike the Buddha, (whom he frequently mentions, to add to his own authority) who was known to talk in the everyday speech of the common people and did not accept the Hindu caste system, Datta is superior being who talks down to all lesser mortals.

Unfortunately it’s all bullshit, he does not have any first hand knowledge, he just hands out dogma that he’s repeating, and he’s totally clueless about language and how it works.

But I think you will find he will not engage in any discussion with you because that would risk revealing his ignorance which would cause him significant embarrassment.

As you have shown in your comment, it is ludicrous to take ancient Sanscrit terms and transfer them into modern English approximate equivalents as if that’s all there is to it. He has no idea what he is talking about.

You will find that he will write the same opaque obscure meaningless nonsense on every thread.

“Consciousness is immutable and is existence itself. It neither evolves nor devolves. ”

There is no proof that consciousness is immutable. Likewise, there is no proof that it does not or cannot evolve.

Top Hits dictionary’s definition:
“noun
the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings: she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later.
• the awareness or perception of something by a person: her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence.
• the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world: consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain.”

Several other dictionaries have similar definitions. Not one says anything about being immutable, nor do any of them speak of it being equivalent to existence.

Problem is, that 2,500 years or more ago, when the Hindus and Buddhists were talking about philosophical and spiritual concepts the terms that they used were their own, and of that time, and have been carried down, to this day, and when someone wants to make a translation, they look in the dictionary for some equivalent English term, and there just are none to be found, so they use the nearest that is available.

In the case of ‘consciousness’ – and almost all the other concepts that Datta mentions, spirit, mind, soul, self, Self, I, ego, etc. – the modern English terms have no relationship to the original Sanscrit or Pali concepts. To treat them as if they mean the same is ridiculous and causes immense confusion and misunderstanding.

This is a simple point which Datta should be able to grasp. It’s just sloppy and ignorant, like calling a wildebeeste a cow because it’s easier to spell and more familiar. It would be much better to use the original Indian terms.

Nirvana is not the same as Christian Heaven, Brahman is not the same as Christian God, and when a Western neuroscientist or philosopher uses the word consciousness, he or she is using it in very much the way you found it defined in the dictionary, and nothing resembling what Datta says, which is derived from a Vedic paradigm that is thousands of years old and terminology which has no European linguistic or etymological equivalence.

If Datta was motivated by a desire to help people understand then he would explain in language that they could understand.